File this science edition under: fascinatingnews you never knew you needed. We're talking a story about a brand-new hue, humpback whales' quirky communication tactic, and a study that shows why Nice News readers are likely (literally) on the same wavelength. The unexpected corners of the science world never cease to amaze.
Science
"It Was Jaw-Dropping": Scientists Say They Found a New Color Never Before Seen by Humans
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Think you've seen it all? Think again (maybe). According to a study published in April, a brand-new color never before seen by humans has been identified. The blue-green hue, dubbed "olo," is "more saturated than any color that you can see in the real world," co-author Ren Ng told BBC Radio 4, and isn't normally visible to the human eye. To create the circumstances for olo to be perceived, Ng and his colleagues had five human subjects (three of whom were the researchers themselves) gaze into a tool called Oz vision, which beamed laser pulses into one of their pupils. There are three types of cone cells in the eye — S, L, and M — and each is sensitive to different wavelengths of blue, red, and green, respectively. In the real world, light that stimulates the M cone cells also triggers the nearby S and L cone cells. But the Oz tool enabled researchers to stimulate only M cone cells in the participants' retinas, sending a unique color signal to the brain "that never occurs in natural vision," they wrote. "We predicted from the beginning that it would look like an unprecedented color signal but we didn't know what the brain would do with it," Ng told The Guardian. "It was jaw-dropping. It's incredibly saturated." While some experts have contested the claim that a truly novel color was discovered, the research does represent an innovative step forward in triggering specific cone cells, and the findings may hold potential to further the understanding of color blindness and other conditions that affect vision. See the turquoise-esque shade researchers say is closest to olo.
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We wave, smile, and hug to be friendly toward our fellow humans. And it turns out humpback whales may also display non-verbal cues to indicate a sense of friendliness with us — in the form of large bubble rings like the one you see here. Researchers analyzed 39 bubble rings created by 11 different whales during a dozen separate encounters with humans. They suggest the bubbles — which are reminiscent of the ones humans might make while blowing smoke — could be an attempt to "playfully interact, observe our response, and/or engage in some form of communication," Fred Sharpe, co-lead author of the May study on the behavior, said in a statement. Although it's known that humpback whales use bubbles for hunting and courtship purposes, this study indicates they may also be an invitation or party trick of sorts to intentionally connect with people. This is no small thing, as the study is part of a bigger project exploring non-human intelligence in the search for extraterrestrial life. The idea is that the more we understand intelligent non-human species, like whales, the better we can detect alien intelligence. Until then, we'll just admire the massive marine mammals in their playground that is the ocean — watch whales blowing bubble rings.
Science
"Revolutionary": World's Largest Digital Camera Debuts Its First Images of the Cosmos
RubinObs/NOIRLab/SLAC/NSF/DOE/AURA/T. Matsopoulos
A groundbreaking observatory in Chile is off to a sparkling start, as evidenced by the debut images released in June. While the initial photos are mesmerizing (you can check them out here), they're just a sliver of what's to come from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, a massive U.S.-funded telescope perched at the summit of Cerro Pachón. "These images are fantastic. They're incredibly high-resolution. But they're just a tiny, tiny fraction of what's been captured," Kevin Reil, a staff scientist with the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, told NPR of the observatory, which is named after an astronomer who made essential contributions to the concept of dark matter. Using the world's largest digital camera, the observatory's main goal is to chart all changes in the sky over a decade, providing researchers an unprecedented amount of data and resulting in a high-def time-lapse of the cosmos. "It's a very special telescope," said Scott Sheppard, an astronomer with Carnegie Science. He added: "It's going to be revolutionary. Astronomers are going to change from observing little areas of the sky to basically data mining. It's going to be like a firehose of data coming in."
Science
Positive People "Are Literally on the Same Wavelength," Brain Study Finds
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Optimism is a favorite topic of ours, so when we saw a study that offered insight into the brains of positive thinkers, we were all ears. And it seems optimists have more in common than just being loyal readers of Nice News. In a July study out of Japan, researchers found that optimists shared similar brain activity patterns, particularly in the medial prefrontal cortex, when imagining future events. Pessimists, on the other hand, showed unique and more varied brain patterns. "This suggests that optimists not only 'think alike' in a structural sense, but they also process emotional information about the future differently with a greater ability to separate what's good from what's bad, which may help them stay resilient," first author Kuniaki Yanagisawa told The Guardian of the study, which involved conducting brain scans of 87 participants and collecting questionnaires from them that determined their level of optimism. This peek inside positive thinkers' brains sheds light on the strong correlation between optimistic individuals and strong social connections, Yanagisawa explained: "What this [study] tells us is that the foundation of their social success might be this shared reality. It's not just about having a positive attitude; it's that their brains are literally on the same wavelength, which may allow for a deeper, more intuitive kind of connection." While we're talking optimism, here are some tips on embracing more positive thinking in your life.
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